A progressive and sometimes degenerative relationship is seen between God and the people he created. In the Bible, several incidences have been documented where God changed his relationship with man. These situations often came with either punishments or rewards. The changes were often accompanied by covenants. It is widely believed, among scholars, that the book of Job was the first book written out of all the books in the Bible. If it truly was the first book written, it is the first recorded text of how people perceived God and their relationship with God. The book of Job is similar to the first books of the Bible, but it is heavily contrasting from the books towards the end of the Old Testament. This fact shows that throughout the books …show more content…
He is no longer just, merciful, and forgiving. Only in this book we see God conversing with Satan. God uses Job as ammunition for how faithful his people are: "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth" (1:8). " "This isn't a mature God, it's an all-powerful deity who plays with humans." God acts very human-like in this book. God tests Job just like in the first books of the Old Testament, because the book of Job is followed by them in the order the are written. "Man's powers don't come close to God's, sure, but according to Genesis, we were made in his image” (Shmoop). "At its beginning, Job seems to be a book about human suffering. By its conclusion, the true subject of the book emerges: God’s sovereignty."(authority and power)” (Cayce). "If we go in the order of the books in the Bible, sin and suffering were connected because of the nature of the covenant. It was believed that keeping God’s statutes resulted in blessing, and not keeping them resulted in cursing (Lev. 26:1-46); Deut. 28:1-68). Even though Job lived in the patriarchal period (before the Law was given), such a natural law would have been understood. But the Bible adds more ingredients to the recipe for suffering, all of which are found in this book" (Cayce). “The book portrays Job as a faithful man who honestly tried to do right before God, and who acknowledged his errors and sought to correct things when he faltered (42:1-6). Still, he suffered, but not because of sin. So deeper questions must be asked and answered. Job asked, but he got an answer he was not expecting” (Cayce). Job even made sacrifices for his sons, in case they had sinned. “Job suffered so he might have a deeper and more accurate knowledge of God. This happened without him even knowing about the precipitating conversation between Satan and God” (Cayce). “The book of Job defends the character of a loving and righteous
Second, the story line. Although Archibald MacLeish wrote the play based on the story of Job in The Bible, there are many differences in the story line. In The Bible, Job’s misfortune was spawned by Satan trying to show God that Job was not as holy as God had thought. God gave Satan the power to destroy everything Job had, including his health. Job’s children all died together when the roof of the house collapsed on them while they were all dining at the house of the oldest brother. His wife died also, and all of his possessions was taken from him. Furthermore, he contracted painful sores all over his body. As for J.B., his children died separately, one after the other. The oldest had died in the army. Two were involved in a car accident. One daughter was killed by an explosion that also took out J.B.’s millions. And the youngest was raped. However, J.B.’s wife, Sarah, was not killed, but instead she left him. In The Bible, Job is confronted by his three friends. His friends encourages him to turn against God and to curse him, but he refused to do so. On the other hand, J.B. was confronted with four friends, the first three encouraging him to turn against God but the fourth telling him to pray to God and to praise Him.
...ade to choose him for the spiritual task. Job realized he had to experience loss and suffering in the name of God to pass the test God bestowed upon him. God stated “Who is that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me... Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth” (p.667) God notified Job he was in no position to question the loss he must undertake in order to complete his mission. Job realized the meaning of his life, when he realized the magnitude God went to convince him of his calling. Job forgave himself for his sacrifices, because he realized it was instructed by God.
There is one significant difference that stands out between Job and Odysseus. That is the reason for their loss of agency and suffering. The reason in for Odysseus’ torment is obvious: he blinded Poseidon’s son. How anyone could not expect some form of vengeance, and sometimes I get the feeling Odysseus is caught unaware by Poseidon, is a mystery to me. The rationale behind Job’s reduction in agency is much less clear and is never addressed by God, who was an accessory to the whole affair by knowingly allowing it to take place. The comforters suggest possible explanations, unhidden sin or a lesson from God, but neither suggestions are confirmed or denied. The reason God accepted Satan’s wager remains a playground for speculation.
In the first chapter of God Behaving Badly, David Lamb argues that God is unfairly given a bad reputation. He claims these negative perceptions are fueled by pop culture and lead many to believe the lie that the God of the Old Testament is angry, sexist, racist, violent, legalistic, rigid, and distant. These negative perceptions, in turn, affect our faith. Ultimately, Lamb seeks to demonstrate that historical context disproves the presumptuous aforementioned. In addition, he defends his position by citing patterns of descriptions that characterize God throughout the Old Testament. “Our image of God will directly affect how we either pursue or avoid God. If we believe that the God of the Old Testament is really harsh, unfair and cruel, we won’t want anything to do with him” (Lamb 22). Clearly, they way Christians choose to see God will shape their relationship with Him.
The Book of Job is one of the three books in the Hebrew bible whose genre is described as wisdom literature.1 Certainly the Book of Job satisfies the literary conventions that qualify a biblical book for such status. 2 Yet Job may be associated with wisdom in a much more literal sense. The Book of Job attempts to deal with a problematic question that confronts suffering humanity: why do bad things happen to good people? The variety and vehemence of commentators' contemporary responses to this chapter of the Bible is testament to the continued relevance of the Book of Job's wisdom thousands of years after it was written. Although the commentators examined herein arrive at differing and sometimes conflicting conclusions after reading the story of "the holy Arab"3, none are left indifferent.
The Book of Job shows a change in God's attitude from the beginning to the end. At the beginning of the book, He is presented as Job's protector and defender. At the end He appears as the supreme being lecturing and preaching to Job with hostility, despite the fact that Job never cursed his name, and never did anything wrong. Job's only question was why God had beseeched this terrible disease on him. I intend to analyze and discuss the different roles God played in the Book of Job.
...n the world. Job questions what god is really doing for him. Then god talks to job in question form about the creation of the earth. This shows that jobs is very small compared to god, so small that he cannot even being to understand some of the the things god is telling him. Chapter 38 proves to job that humans are far below the power of god then in chapter 42 job quickly shames himself for the previous things he said.
Job was a man of the purest faith. When the world shunned God, Job's faith never declined. Job was a wealthy, handsome man with a beautiful wife and a vast amount of property. At some point in time, Satan made a bet with God that if Job situation was changed, his faith would quickly falter. On this note, God took Job's wealth, his property, his family, and his wife. When times were at their worst, God gave Job pus welts on Job's face, taking his looks. Job's faith, however, did not falter, instead it becamestronger. Job passed the test. God then healed Job, gave him more land, greater wealth , and a better wife. Job was baffled, he wondered the purpose behind his fall and rise. When he asked God this, God replied: "...Because I'm God." That was answer enough.
The whole Book is a “double” journey for Job. He shows God his faith and realizes the faith God has that Job will not stray from his path. Job knows deep down that God has not forsaken him.
...hat they were all speaking as if they knew exactly what God was doing might have also upset him. Therefore, to rectify having spoken of God in this manner, they each must take a certain amount of sacrifices to Job, and Job would offer their sacrifices to God and pray for them. In the end, Job was made twice as prosperous as before. His wealth doubled, he had ten more children, and lived 140 more years of his life. The basic theme of this reading is to establish an understanding of the relationship between God and His people. God's wisdom and power are visible everywhere in creation. A willingness to look and accept what is obvious results in awe for the Creator. Even if we do not accept it, it still reveals His glory. Elevating yourself over God makes no sense for the fact that he is immeasurably more powerful and fully able to accomplish what He knows is most wise.
He wants to find a way to justify God’s actions, but he cannot understand why there are evil people who “harm the childless woman, / and do no good to the widow,” only to be rewarded with long, successful lives (Job 24:21). Job’s friends, say that God distributes outcomes to each person as his or her actions deserve. As a result of this belief, they insist that Job has committed some wrongdoing to merit his punishment. God himself declines to present a rational explanation for the unfair distribution of blessings and curses. He still suggests that people should not discuss divine justice since God’s power is so great that humans cannot possibly justify his
The question of why bad things happen to good people has perplexed and angered humans throughout history. The most common remedy to ease the confusion is to discover the inflicter of the undeserved suffering and direct the anger at them: the horror felt about the Holocaust can be re-directed in the short term by transforming Adolf Hitler into Lucifer and vilifying him, and, in the long term, can be used as a healing device when it is turned into education to assure that such an atrocity is never repeated. What, however, can be done with the distasteful emotions felt about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Surely the citizens of those two cities did not themselves directly provoke the government of the United States to deserve the horror of a nuclear attack. Can it be doubted that their sufferings were undeserved and should cause deep sorrow, regret, and anger? Yet for the citizens of the United States to confront these emotions they must also confront the failings of their own government. A similar problem is found in two works of literature, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the book of Job found in the Tanakh. In each of these works a good man is seen to be suffering at the hand of his god; Prometheus is chained to a rock by Zeus who then sends an eagle to daily eat Prometheus' liver while Job is made destitute and brought to endure physical pain through an agreement between God~ and Satan. To examine the travails of these two men is to discover two vastly different concepts of the relationship between god and man.
The book of Genesis 1-11 gives us a teaching and lays a foundation for the truth that is expressed later in the bible as it makes an assumption that God is the creator of the universe and all it holds. The scriptures in this books gives an expression of God as being just, love, wrath, holy and grace. This scripture enables us to understand how we should view the world and God’s part in the creation and the recreation of the whole universe.
...id and Job, both of these things are not applied. In this manner, the stories very often violate the same commandments meant to bring not only justice, but also morality, and other such virtues to a society and its people. Further, it is often God himself, in whose image man was created, who violates his own commandments, and due to this, can man be expected to adhere to the same commandments broken by God if he has been created in God's image? God is explicitly unjust, vengeful, and jealous, particularly in the story of Job. If God is to be an example for the ideal being, then how is it that his nature can express the same things he denounces in his guide, The Bible? All of these questions ultimately lead into one main question, which is in regards to whether or not a people who are led by an unjust God truly have the capability of developing a "just society".
The Bible is the Word of God. It is God’s message for all of humanity. The Bible is divine revelation, breathed by God, written by men, and is applicable for all of humanity. In today’s world, there is controversy over if the inerrancy of the Bible and inspiration of the writers; however, there is little controversy over the simple fact of the New Testament, as a whole, itself. The Bible is not one long book, but rather, the Bible is a book consisting of various letters and manuscripts from throughout the history of mankind. A human being wrote every book of today’s Bible during various times in history. However, there is a classic divide in the books—Old and New Testament. The Old Testament is considered the Jewish Bible. This Bible was the original Scriptures during the time of Jesus and was the original Scriptures for many years. Therefore, not much controversy has risen over the assembly of the Old Testament.